I would have spoken again, but at this moment Brennan came striding toward us. “Come, Edith,” he cried, almost roughly, “this foolishness has surely gone far enough. Peters, what are you waiting here for? I told you to take your prisoner down the road.” A few moments later, the centre of a little squad of heavily armed men, I was tramping along the rocky pathway, and when once I attempted to glance back to discover if the others followed us, the sergeant advised me, with an oath, to keep my eyes to the front. I obeyed him. It was a most tiresome march in the hot sun over the rough mountain roads. There were times when we left these altogether, and crept along half-obliterated trails leading through the dense woods and among the rocks. I learned from scraps of conversation floating about me as we struggled onward, that these precautions were not taken out of any fear of meeting with Confederate troops, whose nearest commands were supposed to be considerably to the westward of where we were, but because of a desire to avoid all possibility of conflict with those armed and irresponsible bands that ranged at will between the lines of the two great armies. Already they had become sufficiently strong to make trouble for small detachments. It must have been nearly the end of the afternoon. We had certainly traversed several miles, and were then moving almost directly south upon a well-defined pike, the name of which I never knew. All the party were travelling close together, when the scout, who throughout the day had been kept a few hundred yards in advance, came back toward us on a run, his hand flung up in an urgent warning to halt. “What is it, Steele?” Brennan questioned, spurring forward to meet him. “Come, speak up, man!” “A squad of cavalry has just swung onto the pike, sir, from the dirt road that leads toward the White Briar,” was the soldier's panting reply. “And I could get a glimpse through the trees down the valley, and there's a heavy infantry column just behind them. They're Rebs, sir, or I don't know them.” “Rebs?” with an incredulous laugh. “Why, man, we've got the only Reb here who is east of the Briar.” “Well,” returned the scout, sullenly, “they're coming from the west, and I know they ain't our fellows.” He was too old a soldier to have his judgment doubted, and he was evidently convinced. Brennan glanced quickly about. However he may have sneered at the report, he was not rash enough to chance so grave a mistake. “Get back into those rocks there on the right,” he commanded sharply. “Hustle your prisoner along lively, men, and one of you stand over him with a cocked gun; if he so much as opens his mouth, let him have it.”